STEM Fields

Researchers surveyed a large group of professionals and found that 39 percent of all respondents reported that they had been verbally harassed and 9 percent stated that they have been physically harassed at work within the past five years. Women of color were the most likely to be victims.

This year, 33 students from Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda earned master’s degrees in electrical and computer engineering and information and communication technology. It was the fourth commencement ceremony for Carnegie Mellon University Africa.

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) has selected 24 educational institutions to receive $1 million grants to promote STEM education. The initiative focuses on those undergraduates who come to college from diverse backgrounds and pathways.

Florida A&M University, the historically Black educational institution in Tallahassee, was recently designated by the National Security Agency and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education.

The Global Initiative for Neuropsychiatric Genetics Education in Research Project (GINGER) has recruited 17 African scholars who will attend workshops in the United States and London over the next two years on epidemiology, bioinformatics, genetics, and grant writing.

The new partnership will focus on bringing solar energy to working communities, developing research in innovative technologies at HBCUs, and increasing the number of Black students pursuing degrees and careers in STEM fields.

Grace Ibitamuno Obienu was married in 2014 and had a baby the next year. This past August she began studies in the M.D./Ph.D. program at Rutgers University. She recently published her first novel and is now writing a sequel.

The Toxicology Mentoring and Skills Development Training Program led by Wilson Rumbeiha, a professor of veterinary diagnostic and production animal medicine at Iowa State University, will link undergraduate students with professional toxicologists in academia, government, and industry.

The Students of Color Opportunities for Research Enrichment (SCORE) program seeks to bring students from underrepresented groups into the scientific community by getting them involved in research projects in university laboratories.

Dr. Rogers, who has been serving as vice president and chief medical officer at the University of Texas Medical Branch since 2014, will also serve as executive vice president for community health engagement at the University of Chicago.

Since 2010 there have been 120 Biology Scholars who have graduated from the university. More than 90 percent of those who applied to medical school were accepted and enrolled. Another 19 students are enrolled in Ph.D. programs and three are enrolled in M.D./Ph.D. programs.

Among the findings of a a new report from Google is the fact that only 47 percent of Black students nationwide attend schools that have courses in computer science, compared to 58 percent of White students.

Harriet Nembhard was appointed the director of the School of Mechanical, Industrial, and Manufacturing Engineering at Oregon State University in Covallis. She will also serve as the Eric R. Smith Professor of Engineering at Oregon State.

A new report from by the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities and the Association of American Medical Colleges offers strategies for increasing the number of biomedical researchers from underrepresented groups.

The Minority Fellowship program is open to physicians and other individuals who hold doctorates in scientific fields who want to pursue a career in the pharmaceutical field. The first class of Minority Fellows are Howard University graduates.

During the 2015-16 academic year, the University of Florida graduated 109 students who applied to U.S. medical schools. This was 2.2 percent of all Black students who applied to medical schools in the United States. Nearly 14 percent of all graduates of Spelman College applied to medical school.

John Urschel, an offensive guard for the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League, recently completed his first semester in the mathematics Ph.D. program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He took four courses and had a 4.0 grade point average.

Shalisha and Shonda Witherspoon are identical twins. They recently graduated from the College of Engineering and Computing at Florida International University in Miami with identical 3.95 grade point averages, the best in the college.

The National Academy of Sciences does not publish data on the race or ethnicity of its members. But according to a JBHE analysis of the group of 84 new members, it appears that only one of the new members is an African American.

Edward A. Bouchet was the first African American to earn a doctorate from an American university when he received a Ph.D. in physics at Yale University in 1876. The laboratory where he did much of his research has been named the 37th historic site in the history of physics.

Professor Gallimore joined the faculty at the University of Michigan in 1992. He was promoted to full professor in 2004. Dr. Gallimore is the director of the Michigan Space Grant Consortium, funded by NASA and the director of the Michigan/Air Force Center of Excellence in Electric Propulsion.

Under the new program students will spend their first three years at historically Black Harris-Stowe State University, majoring in biology. They will then spend four years in the pharmacy doctorate program at the St. Louis College of Pharmacy.

Robert F. Smith, chair and CEO of Vista Equity Partners has made a $50 million donation to Cornell University. The gift is one of the largest ever made by an African American to an institution of higher education.

The national mathematics organization strives to increase the number of underrepresented minorities who earn doctoral degrees in mathematics and related fields. It has been housed at the University of Iowa but will have a new home at Purdue University.

The University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, a historically Black education institution that enrolls about 2,500 students, has announced that it will offer a new bachelor’s degree program in biochemistry beginning in the fall of 2016.

Dr. Achille Messac, educated at MIT, has been serving as dean of engineering and professor of aerospace engineering at Mississippi State University. Previously, he served on the faculties at Syracuse University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Scientists at the University of Connecticut, Yale University, Harvard University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a new method of detecting sickle cell disease that can be used in remote areas that do not have advanced medical technology.

During the 10-year period, the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded in physics in the United States increased by 58 percent. But the number of bachelor’s degrees in physics awarded to African American rose only slightly.

Professional sports teams have discontinued playing Kate Smith’s version of “God Bless America” at games due to her recording of songs in the 1930s that contained racist lyrics. Which statement best reflects your view?

I agree that Smith’s version of “God Bless America” should not be played.

Smith’s recordings with racist lyrics should be considered in context of the times.

Abraham Lincoln made racist comments, should we ban the reciting of the Gettysburg Address?